


Kid Gloves

by palimpsestus



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Adult Themes, F/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, and all Kilgrave implies, mentions of past Kilgrave, slow simmer, snark is love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-19 12:05:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11897388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palimpsestus/pseuds/palimpsestus
Summary: To 'treat someone with kid gloves', implies gentle handling. Gloves made of kid-leather were fine and soft, and regularly used to handle precious things. Some people believe it is a boxing analogy, to wear the gloves of kids, but this is a misconception.Or conversations between a blind man and an alcoholic.





	1. AKA Gently Does It

A paper cup was planted firmly at Jessica’s elbow, and she caught a whiff of the coffee inside sloshing against the plastic lid. She screwed one eye open, wincing at the light fading in through the bar’s grimy window, and decided “Fuck off,” was an appropriate response.

The bartender clucked his tongue, disapproving.

The coffee bringer gently nudged her ribs with an elbow and leaned forward a little, resting a little more of his weight on the stick he held in front of him. That was a ruse. The stick was collapsible, and couldn’t bear that much of his weight. Besides, he didn’t truly need the aide, but it had the bartender clucking again, exactly as Matt intended. “Come on,” he cajoled, “I’ll even buy you a hot dog from the stand.”

“Who eats hot dogs at this time of the morning?” she grumbled, heaving her leaden head up off the bar and swaying for a moment . . . or two.

“I thought you would.”

“Make it a pretzel and you have a deal.”

 

One pretzel and two and a half cups of coffee later, they colonised a booth at the back of a run-down diner and Jessica rubbed sleep and eyeliner from her eyes, peering at the contract. “But you already know he’s cheating on his wife,” she said, blinking back at Matt.

“Yes, but . . . heart rates don’t stand up in court. I need legal proof, with a legal paper trail. I’d like to hire Alias Investigations.” There was a hint, a suggestion even, of a smirk on Matt’s lips. Something about this proposal brought him immense satisfaction. A neat answer to a tricky question? Maybe. But there was a softness to that curve at the corner of his mouth, a gentle sort of happiness. Following the letter of the law never made Matt ‘happy’, for want of a better word. Exacting justice, that made him fiercely happy, but today’s happiness was reserved for something else. What could make Matt so happy but thinking he was keeping his little circle of friends protected?

He thought this was helping her.

He had placed her within his circle.

She sat back, with enough force to make the booth groan. “You could take this to a dozen hacks for a lot less money, Murdock,” she said, studying his face as she spoke. With others, she would have looked away, but no need to hide her study with a blind man. “Save your cash and go to them.”

Matt wrinkled his nose and tilted his head to the side. “He’s sneaky. I need my evidence quick. And I need my evidence to be of good quality. I need you. Unless your relationship with Hogarth is proprietary?”

She stuck her tongue out at him, and felt very much the better for it as he studied the spot just a little to the right of her face. He favoured listening to people out his right ear. Although she wouldn’t have been surprised if that was a ruse too, all designed to make him seem harmless.

_I’m going to need to get up earlier to catch you out_ , she thought to herself, and with a sigh she snatched the contract up, told him he was paying for her coffee, and marched out onto the street.

 

 

Their conversations were . . . not. She would hand a client his card. He would leave a note that he needed dirt on someone. Once, after obtaining some particularly incriminating photographs for him, there was a coffee cup left on her favourite perch above the city, filled with a steaming hot latte. The week after, she lifted Foggy’s car off a no-wait zone. Working for Hogarth he could have afforded it, but that wasn’t the point.

It was a stiflingly hot evening in late July when they met on a rooftop. The Daredevil hopped from fire-escape to skylight, rolling onto the tacky roofing-tar and making a quickstep over to the wall Jessica was pleasantly sprawled upon. “What is this?” he remarked, sitting beside her booted feet, uncannily managing to avoid the crumpled shirt she’d left there.

Jessica lifted her head a little. As the sun had sunk behind the spires, she had pushed her sunglasses on top of her head, and she studied him freely. It had been a while since she’d seen him in the get-up, his chin marred with a little bruise beneath the bristles of his fuzz. “It’s called enjoying the view,” she said, settling back down to warm her shoulderblades on the stone. “You should try it sometime.”

He huffed with gentle laughter and she smirked. Who was going to talk next was a matter of professional pride, and she’d had plenty of time to unspool in the warmth of the evening sunset. She was content to wait forever, if she had to.

“What’s it like?” Matt asked after a while.

She didn’t bother hiding her grin. “Oh it’s beautiful. There’s a gaping hole in the skyline where a big building blew up, everything else is covered in billboards. Closer to us you can start to see people through the dirty windows, there’s a big fat dude over there who’s jerking himself off in front of some sort of cartoon I think might be My Little Pony, and directly opposite you there’s a porn shop that’s selling second hand gimp suits.”

The devil of Hell’s Kitchen barked with laughter, swinging his feet over the edge of the wall. “Your eyes aren’t even open,” he accused.

“Who you going to believe? Your super senses or me?”

The Daredevil was still brimming with amusement as he dropped off the edge of the roof. She listened for the rattle of the fire escape and dozed until the night air prickled at her skin. She pulled her shirt back on over her tank, and skulked off to the nearest bar.

 

She didn’t dream about him. But she did dream. She dreamed of an empty street, a pool of cold light spilling onto the wet cobbles. And a man in red, sprawled over them, life leaking from his body in oozing scarlet. And she could not take a step forward to help him.

 

“You have excellent taste for an alcoholic.”

Cross-legged on Trish’s couch, Jess affected great offense, balancing a slender necked glass of very dry prosecco in one hand, and a handful of dorito chips in the other. “Uh, as an alcoholic, I know my alcohol _extremely_ well.”

Trish rolled her eyes, bringing the rest of the bottle and her own glass over. She set the bottle on the floor and curled up on the opposite side of the sofa, snatching a chip from the bag in Jessica’s lap. “So, the lawyer’s the Daredevil?”

Nodding, Jess slurped at some of the prosecco. “But you can’t tell anyone,” she uncurled one finger from around the glass to point at Trish. “Because it’s, like, _soo-purr see-krit?_ ”

Trish laughed at her inflection and stretched out her legs, burying bare feet beneath Jess’s thighs. “And he brings you coffee . . .” she finished this musing with a long, slow sip of the bubbly.

Jess dug deep into the Dorito packet, digging her fingers around inside the foil, pressing her lips together in what Mrs Walker would have called a ‘pout’. “He doesn’t bring me coffee like, _all_ the time,” she said at last, rolling her eyes at the thought. “But yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes he just pops by. Sometimes it’s just . . .” she shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I think it’s a good thing. You need more friends your own age.” And Trish smiled beatifically. “Seriously.” She pushed her toes hard against Jessica’s thigh, waiting for Jess to meet her gaze. “I haven’t heard you talk about anyone for longer than a minute. Not for a long time. It’s good for you.”

Jessica reached for the bottle and poured a refill for them both, then gripped the bottle by its narrow neck and took a long slug for good measure. She liked the burst of fizz on her tongue, liked the warm and pleasant buzz in her head, and could have chased that feeling for an eternity. Long after Trish had given up and gone to bed, and Jess was left alone with the shadows and the prospect of sleep, Jess would still want to find this perfect, languid moment. And it would be so far away.

Trish was studying the space between them, and she raised her gaze slowly. “Don’t break his heart,” she warned, frowning with a seriousness that was only half meant.

 “ _His_ heart?” Jess clapped a hand against her breast. “What about _mine_?”

“Like you have one.” Trish made a face, and Jess made one back, and the conversation turned to other things.

 

“I need your help.”

It was a strange phrase. One that somehow slipped between Jessica’s ribs, lodged in her lungs, and stole her breath. She sat up from the bar, pressing the phone closer to her ear. The thump of her heart seemed to echo louder than the fading chatter of the Thursday night crowd. “Where are you?”

Finding him wasn’t difficult. Nor was carrying him over the rooftops to her apartment. Getting information from him? It shouldn’t have been so difficult for a PI. She eased him down onto her battered couch and grimaced at the way he grunted. “I really think we should call Claire,” she muttered.

“No.” The resolute denial was not to be argued with. Matt clutched at his side with one hand, and kept his chin tucked down, his jaw tightly gritted.

Jess took a step back, and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. For half a heartbeat, she could see the man in red sprawled on the street again. And she was fixed in place . . .

Matt tilted his head a little, and his grimace seemed to fade. “I’d take a whisky if you have one.”

“Vodka okay?” she fired back, and reached behind her for the half-bottle she knew was perched on the shelf.

“I’ll make do.”

She pressed the bottle into his gloved hands and unscrewed the cap. The moment he had it she snatched her hands back, taking a few more steps backwards, and wrapping her arms around her waist. Her heart was skipping, her mouth was dry. Christ she needed a drink. Her hands were already reaching for the vodka and instead she clenched her fists, then began twisting her fingers together, pinching her knuckles so hard it hurt.

Matt drank with a healthy appreciation for alcohol’s ability to numb a person’s soul. He pulled the bottle from his lips with a wet smack that turned to a groan. For a moment, he held the bottle out to her, but realising she was not close enough to take it, he let the bottle rest against his side, and tilted his head back.

_How did they get you so bad? Who were they? What were they after? What were_ you _after?_ She made a lunge for the vodka and took a greedy gulp herself.

“You don’t need to think so hard,” he managed through pants.

“I try not to think,” she snapped back, and that made him smile. “Hey,” she said, and set the bottle at her feet, returning to his side. She knelt. “Let’s get this off.” She reached for his gloves, watched the tiny flinch of his arm as she began to work the catches. She eased the leather and armour from his fingers, and pursed her lips when she saw the bruises on his knuckles. She pulled off the second glove and set them both on the floor beside the couch. “I’m going to get your mask now, okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed, a stillness coming over him, the rise and fall of his chest slowing as her fingertips reached for his head. She found the mask’s release at the back of his head, and it came off easier than the gloves. As the mask came off, she hesitated, holding it above his head, transfixed by the brown eyes that gazed up at her, unseeing. There were lines around his eyes. Crinkles that had been smiles, if not laughter. And so much colour. The dark, dark brown that rimmed the iris, the flecks of autumnal warmth that sparkled in their depths. Hints of gold in places.

“Your heart has slowed,” he murmured, tilting his head just a little, bringing his right ear closer.

“Just shocked by that ugly mug,” she said. “Your fancy hat is down here beside your gloves, you know where it is?”

Matt remained still, but said he knew. She didn’t doubt him.

“You want the rest of the spandex off?” she asked.

“If you don’t mind.” The timbre of his voice was warm, too warm for her grey little apartment, with its punched through plasterboard and bare, unvarnished floors.

_Why should I mind? At least it will give me a chance to see you’re not bleeding to death._ Out loud, she said “Good, because the spandex is also fucking ugly. And you’re getting blood on my couch.” Pulling the costume off did not take long, though she was careful of the startling dark bruises across his upper arms and chest. When he was freed, she convinced herself most of the blood came from shallow cuts and scrapes. If he was bleeding internally, well . . .

“What?” he asked. When she glanced at him, he offered her a thin smile, “Something worried you.”

A man who could see through her. A cold shudder spread from her gut. “Claire could tell us if one of your ribs has stabbed you through the heart or something,” she said, keeping her tone offhand.

“My ribs are fine.”

The calmness of his voice, and that hum of warmth, did a little something to ease the feeling that had crept into her core. “I’m getting a blanket. Stay.” Easing to her feet, she felt a little twinge in her thigh. She’d been clenching every muscle as she crouched beside him, and for someone with superstrength, that tension had consequences. In her bedroom, she snatched up a quilt, and then held it close to sniff, regretting the impulse. Febreeze probably wouldn’t cut it with someone who could smell feelings. Or whatever the fuck he did.

When she returned, Matt had made himself more comfortable on the couch, resting his head on its arm and dangling his feet off the opposite side. He had one hand curled around his bruised ribs, the other cast up above his head. It looked, a little, like he had taken a swoon and collapsed on her couch. All he was missing was a corset for her to loosen. He turned his head a little to track her footsteps as she laid the blanket over him, but said nothing until she pulled her office chair around and sat, taking the vodka with her.

“You never wanted armour?” he asked.

_Jessica. Take off your clothes._

The bottle shattered in her hand, and Matt jumped. She swore, jumping to her feet and shaking off glass. “Stay!” she snapped as Matt made a move. “There’s fucking glass everywhere.”

“I know.”

She pulled off her soaked tank and wrapped it around her hand before she picked the largest pieces off the floor.

“You’re bleeding,” Matt said softly.

She snarled something in response, and tossed the glass shards in the bin. After a moment’s thought, she shimmied out of her damp denims, kicking her boots off and stomping back into the bedroom. She returned with a sweater on and a tin of cheap lager, picking her way over the nuggets of glass still present on the rug. She _was_ bleeding. The palm of her hand. Just a tiny nick. She raised it to her mouth, and sucked. “I’m no hero,” she said, pulling her palm away and snapping the ringpull of her can.

He went still once again. “You rescued me,” he said.

“Shut the fuck up and go to sleep.”


	2. AKA Feather Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very slight Defenders spoilers at the end of this chapter

That October started with a cold snap that shocked New Yorkers from the comfortable warmth of the previous month. The cold kept people inside. Close quarters made tempers fray. The sound of fists echoed through the tenements, the acrid scent of crack lingered in the dark places, and the whisper of threats pressed against his skin as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen prowled the rooftops.

The scream had come from this tower block, he was sure of it. The block was perhaps five storeys higher than the buildings surrounding it. To Matt, it was a space where the wind did not blow, where the gull’s cries bounced away instead of reverberating onwards. He could hear instead the ever-present rumble of people. Though he stood on his tip toes, though he listened with all his might, he could not hear the scream again.

He approached the building from the roof of the surrounding walk-ups, and waited a moment. The electricity crackled along the wires that skirted the rooftop, the constant whine of strings that scored any cityscape. The cars were a bassy rumble, the people were the often out-of-tempo percussion. When the concerto lulled, he dropped from the roof and made his way down into the echoing tunnel below the building. Here, in the underground car park, the humdrum of the hundred or so apartments above him was pushed downwards. It was like a weight that rested upon his shoulders.

And now he heard it, the muffled sobbing.

There was a central stairwell that followed the elevator shafts. There were a group of youths, five floors up. The sobbing was a little further on. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen began to climb.

By the time the evening was out, Dani Tullo was limping into an A&E. Her boyfriend hadn’t yet regained consciousness.

 

Dani lingered in his mind. Foggy remarked that his fingers were too tight on his arm.

“Sorry,” Matt said, and made an effort to loosen his grip.

“What’s on your mind?” Curiosity, concern and a little anger were present in Foggy’s tone, poise and in the heat of his body. In recent times, parts of Foggy had changed. His expensive suits gave him a different smell. He no longer bought dollar-store aftershave. The red onions he was so fond of in his lunch time wrap were now cutting through the smell of company provided granola and yoghurt for breakfast, instead of a power bar. All this was superficial. Peoples’ smells were liable to change with their whims. It was so much a construct of what they bought, ate, and their own messed up hormones. But more than that, Foggy was more solid than before. It wasn’t that he made more use of Hogarth’s complementary gyms, it was that he walked differently.

Success sat well on Franklin Nelson.

“Just don’t want you to leave me behind,” Matt said, slowing down to make his point, and scoring himself an invisible point as Foggy smiled and gave him a gentle tug back into line. “How expensive is that aftershave by the way?”

“More than you make in a year.”

Lunch was, therefore, on Foggy. They chose one of the many little pop up bistros around these parts, and traded stories in code. Did you read Karen’s article? (How are things between you both?) Yeah. It was really good. (She still hasn’t forgiven me). I picked up a new client recently. Interesting guy. (One of you lot). Criminal or Civil? (What do I need to know?)

And that’s how it continued until Foggy dropped his spoon in his empty bowl and sat back a little. “I notice you’ve been talking a lot with one of our investigators. You wouldn’t be trying to poach, would you?”

Matt smirked. The waitress was on her way over, her heart rate picking up just a little, nervous, like many people were, about approaching the blind man.

“Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz don’t have an exclusive contract. I checked.”

“Huh. So is it a personal interest?” Foggy waited until the waitress was at their elbows before landing that question, and Matt had to smile and the masterful sabotage. The waitress’s cheeks flushed, a fractional rise in the heat emanating from her skin. “Oh my God, it _is_ ,” Foggy exclaimed.

“What? I didn’t say anything. Silence cannot be taken as affirmation.”

“Do you want to plead the Fifth?”

“No, I - ”

“If you’re not pleading the Fifth you must answer all of the cross’s questions. I ask you again, and a verbal response is required. Is there a personal stake in your relationship with the Private Investigator Jessica Jones?”

The waitress, having topped up their coffee and overheard enough sparring to make her lose interest, had drifted away again.

“Our relationship is entirely professional.”

“Are you aware that you are currently under oath, best friend oath, and must respond truthfully to all inquiries?”

“I am aware.”

“I repeat my question. What is the nature of your relationship with Jessica Jones?”

“Entirely professional.”

“You’re a lousy liar, you know that?”

 

He heard her on the street. Not her voice, but the heavy tread of her favoured boots, the scrape of leather against knit, the little inward breath as she paused outside the sign that listed all the half-pint businesses in this dilapidated office. If he concentrated, he thought he could make out her smell over the damp coffee grinds in the trashcan. The moisturiser, conditioner, the lipstick, the warmth of her body undercutting it all. And then there was Dani, standing beside her, her breathing more ragged, stinking of fear.

So when Jess knocked on the door, he opened it and waited. For a fraction of a moment, Jess waited too, impatience radiating off her in the tension of her muscles. Then the thoughts clicked, and she winced, a heavy sigh, and the movement of the air around her told him she’d gestured towards him. “Matt? It’s Jessica. I have a possible client for you.”

“Hi,” he said, and held out his hand, deliberately a little off centre. Dani fumbled for it awkwardly, while Jess rolled her eyes. “Matt Murdock,” he introduced himself.

“I’m Dani Tullo.”

And so, Matt ushered them into his office. Jess neatly sidestepped him at one point to push a chair out of his way, one he tended to step around instinctively. Judging from the way her breathing sounded, the quickness of her exhalation, the slight hiss, she was fighting a grin. She liked the charade.

Sitting opposite his desk, leaning back in her chair while Dani perched on the edge of hers, Jess told a story. Her client had contacted her after a run in with the Devil of Hells Kitchen –

-“Are you okay? I’ve heard he’s pretty scary?”

“No he protected me,” Dani answered him, while Jess nearly rolled her eyeballs from her skull.

-the Devil had taken care of her boyfriend, a man who had beaten her regularly. Dani’s ribs still clicked as she breathed. When Dani had returned to her apartment the following morning, her boyfriend had left. He had taken all the money Dani had squirrelled away. And worse, he had taken the pictures of her grandmother. The woman who had raised her. It was a calculated theft, intended to twist the knife in Dani’s side. When Jess related this part of the story, Dani’s throat tightened so much she let out a barely audible whimper. Most people wouldn’t hear it. Those strangled screams of the truly wounded.

“I’m trying to track him down,” Jess finished. “But in the mean time, Dani could use someone who can deal with a little . . . drunk and disorderly.”

The capillaries in Dani’s cheeks opened, the blood rushing to flood her face.

He left them to photocopy some forms at the rented office’s shared fax room. He heard Dani shifting uncomfortably in her chair, could hear the way Jess huffed in irritation at the wait. And then: “You didn’t tell me he was blind.”

“Far as I know there’s no need for a sight test to pass the bar.”

“But, I mean, is that why he’s cheap?”

“I’ve been around a lot of lawyers - ” he heard the hitch of her breath, could almost picture the moment she realised he could hear, even from down the hall. The lips that he knew were constantly tense would pull downwards. She would look at the floor, he had heard before how her hair would fall forwards in a rustle, knew it was long, knew it was thick, unkempt . . . “He’s one of the best.” She finished her words abruptly, and he returned as soon as he could.

When they had dealt with the formalities, Jessica lingered while Dani said her goodbyes and thank yous. “I’ll catch you later,” she muttered, with a jerk of her head, and she waited while Matt made himself busy with his notes.

“You brought me a client,” he said, setting the last file in his lockable drawer.

“Technically you sort of brought her to me.” She was standing with her hands shoved deep in her pockets, a restless to her that reminded him of a dog about to run.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

On the walk to Josie’s, he reached for her arm on instinct. She made a space for him, holding her elbow just a little more stiffly, keeping rigid so he had a guide to follow. Her arm was surprisingly slender beneath the leather and jersey. He knew her strength, but it was kept inside wiry sinew, not bulging muscle. For a fleeting moment, he imagined sliding his palm over her throat, hooking his thumb beneath her jaw, but as soon as the ghost of the thought tingled his palm he shivered, and Jess turned her body a little towards him. “You okay?”

In Josie’s, where his shoes clung comfortably to the floor, and the smell of urine was almost overwhelming, Jessica let him buy the beers and found the pool table. She rolled some of the balls across the felt, but took a seat without fetching the cues. She took the beer he offered, and took a drink. “You know, Dani’s boyfriend took her money . . . and her pictures . . . because he was embarrassed. You don’t just kick the shit out of a guy like that. You make sure he knows you know where he lives. You hurt him. You didn’t stop him.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

“No, you-” she stopped herself by biting down hard, nicking her tongue. He could taste the copper in the air.

He shifted so his knee brushed hers. The material of his pants yielded against her denim. “Thank you for telling me,” he said softly.

She drew breath to say something, but drowned it in another slug of beer.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, and when she nodded – her hair and her shirt rustled with the motion – he continued, “I pick up a lot of how people feel. Their pulse, their heat . . . I know things.”

“You know how hot I am?” But her words were brittle.

“Dani makes you uncomfortable.”

Jess looked away. She drank, nearly finishing the bottle. She held herself so tightly that the stool she was perched on began to groan softly beneath her strained thighs. “You probably fucking know,” she bit out. “There was a guy. He could . . . control me. Until he couldn’t. I killed him.”

If he could have given anything, he would have had Josie appear with a bottle of spirits and a pair of glasses. He would have gathered Jessica up in his arms, maybe rocked her just a little. He would have taken her home, and lain beside her as she slept, peacefully. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Yeah.” Jessica reached for his beer. “Me too.”

“You know, Foggy was asking about you the other day.” He heard the way her tongue tapped against her teeth, and hesitated.

“Jesus, you don’t need to treat me like I’m made of glass,” she muttered, and tried to drink again, although her bottle was empty.

“Uh . . .” The way she shifted her weight, a little unsteady, a little over-tense, had him squaring his shoulders. If she swung for him, he’d need to use her size against her. Hold her down, make it painful for her to move, anything to keep her from connecting her fist with his body. She’d knock him half way across the room. “I don’t,” he began.

“Really? The coffee? The clients? The whole ‘taking me under your protection’ thing? You get a real hard-on for this hero business, don’t you?”

“I don’t see what’s wrong with trying to protect my friends,” he snapped, too quickly. ‘Friends’ was too loaded a word for Jessica Jones.

She leapt to her feet, vibrating with energy. It tasted almost like rage, if it wasn’t from the little hitch of her breath that sounded much more like Dani’s strangled scream, “All the backflips in the world wouldn’t help me.” She tried to force a laugh, but as she started to storm out, she cut him a wide berth.

“Hey!” he twisted on his stool, his hand twitching as he stopped himself reaching for her arm. He forced his voice to remain low. “I think a lot of people have hurt you, Jessica, but I’m not going to be one of them.”

She scoffed. “Believe me, that’s not what I’m worried about.” He could feel how her gaze skittered away from him, the endless shifting of her body weight. The slight squeak of the sticky floorboards beneath her boots.

It took more concentration than he cared to admit to keep sitting on the stool. Not to stand, to close the distance between them as she considered running. “I get it,” he said slowly. “You think you’re the one who needs the kid gloves, right? That you just so dangerous to be around? That people keep getting hurt around you? You don’t need to worry about me, Jess. There’s not much I haven’t seen.”

Most of his senses were easy to categorise. He knew the tilt of the floor from the exact way he balanced on the stool. He knew the heat of the air from prickle of his skin. He could hear and taste and feel the world around him. Whatever . . . thing . . . suddenly starting radiating from Jess, he felt breathless as she turned the force of it onto him.

“You want to know what I see? I see an orphan with an attitude problem, who’s carried that chip on his shoulder of the abusive caretaker and the crappy fucking system that never really helped him. Who never got over that first childish desire to ‘save the world’, even though you’re struggling to keep a single street safe.”

“Are we talking about me or you?”

“I see someone who spent so much time learning how to stand up after taking a punch that you never stopped to ask if maybe you would be better walking away. If maybe it’s a fight that can’t be won. I see someone who’d have a building _dropped_ on him, and come back genuinely believing he is the literal fucking chosen one of Hell’s Kitchen. I see someone who will get himself hurt, because that’s the only thing he knows how to feel. So fuck you, Matt Murdock, and your pointy little ears. Because I don’t have time to rescue you. I have my own shit.”

And before Matt could collect a retort, she was marching out. He could hear her steps echo in the street for a good minute afterwards, until the patter of the rain drowned it out. Her scent lingered on his shirt, long after he left Josie’s, and seemed to follow him as he prowled the city that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come - next week! (Also this may end up being chapter 2 of 4!)


	3. AKA Softly Softly

“Did Matt send you?”

Foggy, a coffee in each hand, faltered outside her door. “Uh . . . no?”

Jessice Jones leaned harder against the door frame, her eyes narrowed. “You just show up with coffee?”

“Well . . . coffee and a new contract from Hogarth . . . why would _Matt_ send me?”

Jess snarled something non-committal, took her coffee and her contract, and slammed the door in Foggy’s face, the glass rattling in its pane.

 

Jess followed the clues. A receipt from a bodega. The owner’s vague description of a man. She prowled the streets, then lodged herself between two apartment blocks to watch for Dani’s man.

_“He questions every move he makes. Every thought he has.”_

Some of Jess’s memories were almost cinematic in their haziness, the slight vanilla taste of bourbon on them, the shallow depth of field of her unfocussed eyesight. They were not memories of Kilgrave, but of the edges of him. The times he was whispering in her ear, but only in the shadows. Her times with Kilgrave were crystalline sharp in comparison. It was a tell. A hint that in her head it was fear, not him. She remembered, vaguely, Claire talking about a ‘friend’. _“He questions every move he makes. Every thought he has.”_

What makes him think he’s a hero? Jess shifted a little, the stonework behind her back crumbling into the air beneath her. She dug the tips of her boots against the opposing wall, screwing her eyes shut for a moment. Heroes were few and far between on the streets of New York. Above them, maybe there were a few. But what about beneath them?

Heroes did things like beat Dani’s boyfriend within an inch of his life, and then walk away, leaving him angry and bitter. Heroes weren’t the type to sit around, their hips and shoulder blades digging into old bricks, watching a single door for hours at a time. It wasn’t saving anyone. Nobody’s life depended on her boredom. It was just doing something that mattered.

When a man emerged from the apartment, his right arm bound in a greying cast, and yellow bruises across his cheeks, Jess straightened her spine. The stonework groaned. And she smiled a small smile that revealed her teeth.

 

It had begun after the building fell. A few late night dinners with drinks, with Karen at first, and Claire, but occasionally sometimes just Foggy in Trish’s beautiful apartment. Every time he arrived, Trish would set out snacks in elegant little hand-crafted bowls, the kind of thing one might pick up in an uptown boutique. Trish would press a glass or a cup into his hand, depending on the time of day, and pull out one of the stools beneath her breakfast bar. He loved watching it, because it was a performance. He’d watched, and he knew she never reached into the snack bowls herself. Nor did she ever take a seat on one of her stools. Trish hosted people like she was following a script in her head. Foggy counted her slips as personal wins, like the time she had sat on her sofa instead of stand beside the bar, and the night she’d suggested ordering pizza instead of providing ready-made crudités.

“Something on your mind?” Trish asked as she beckoned him inside. Their occasional meet-ups had silently defined rules. The discussion of their . . . ‘friends’ . . . was off limits. But feelings, feelings of helplessness and weakness, that was fair game. You were allowed to consider government conspiracies, but not ask for the best way to get blood out of a shirt. You could talk about the morality of heroics, but not question your own cowardice. Foggy knew he was flirting with a line in the sand with his visit.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, and accepted the beer she offered him – something dark, craft-brewed, unpronounceable, and very palatable – “I had an interesting meeting with Jessica this morning.”

Trish stiffened a little, one hand still on the refrigerator door. “I see,” she said after a moment.

“She was asking about Matt.” His lips were dry, so he took another sip.

For almost a minute, Trish studied him, before she gave a tiny nod and reopened the fridge, retrieving a beer for herself. “Okay,” she said, cracking the cap.

 

 

The rain was drumming off the roof. Except where it wasn’t. A small sliver of a void, moving quickly across the ground, and then sounds of a slender hand being pressed against the fire-escape door, the click of the mechanism, and the heavier footsteps onto the stairs.

Matt went to fetch his whisky. He knew that he was smiling, and he couldn’t help himself.

“Guess where I’ve been,” Jess commanded him from above.

He poured two glasses, and tilted his head to hear her just a little better. “Your boots smell of honeysuckle, the particular type that the neighbour across from Trish’s apartment likes on her balcony. You also came past Tommy’s on the way, I can smell the chilli on your hair, which is between here and Trish’s.” She was stomping down the stairs now, but he could feel the easy grin on her face. “If I really wanted to impress you, I’d say you also have just a whiff of Paco Rabanne on your jacket, not as though you’ve been standing beside anyone, more like someone who wore a lot of it was standing upwind of you. Foggy wears Paco Rabanne at the moment. A lot of it.”

“Men shouldn’t be given money.” She had reached him, and she took the proffered glass, clinking it against his. She knocked the whisky back in one gulp, which he obligingly matched, and then poured them a second. “I found Dani’s boyfriend. Ex. And the pictures. He won’t be bothering her again.” Jess gave her report like it didn’t matter to her, like her whole body wasn’t singing with satisfaction.

“And I think she will be free of the DUI,” he said in return, and he tried hard not to show how much her happiness pleased him. “Thanks,” he said after a moment. “I’ll watch out for the revenge in future.”

Jess shrugged, and took her glass over to the sofa. He trailed along behind, and they sat down together. Jess sat cross legged, facing him, and sipped at her booze. “What do you think Foggy and Trish are talking about?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s us.”

“Nah, Trish wouldn’t give up my secrets.”

“Secrets?” He grinned as she rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t be so sure about the girl code. Foggy is very persuasive.” As Jess chuckled, he let his hand fall on the back of the sofa, the fingertips close to her elbow. “I’m serious. People just want to gossip to him. He has a gift.”

“A superpower of gossip!” She leaned in a little closer, her elbow brushing the outside of his pinkie, the cool air still clung to her leather jacket. “Now _that’s_ the superpower jackpot right there.”

Matt reached for the blanket folded over the arm of the sofa, and pulled it over to cover Jess’s knees. She helped, tugging the corner around her back, and then settling closer so he could have some of the thick woollen weave over his knees. When he sat back into position, her heat was seeping through to him. “A hell of a lot better than blindness,” he agreed, aware that she was watching him. She watched him a lot, more than most people. It had to mean something. He hoped it meant something.

“What do you think they’re saying about us?” Jess spoke in a low voice, one that hoped to encourage secrets and confidences.

He let himself lean forward, and again let his hand rest on the spine of the cushions. His fingertips could brush against Jess’s shoulder now, if he let them. “Foggy’s probably trying to apologise for me being a dick. As usual.” He liked the way Jess laughed at him. It was brassy and disdainful, like he’d made a fool of himself. Not many people laughed at him.

“Well I’m sure Trish will accept that apology, while privately thinking I’m the bigger dick.”

He chuckled. “I have to admire her loyalty,” he said.

“There’s no one else like her.” And Jess toasted the air, finishing her second glass. She set the empty down on the floor and wriggled out from her leather coat, folding it and setting it over the arm. She sat for a moment, and Matt could feel the stuffing in the cushions stiffen as she grew tense, wanting to say something, but not sure what. He drew breath to distract her, but she beat him to it, reaching for the bottle beneath him, her breast brushing his knee through layers of clothing and woollen blanket. “Your view is lovely.”

It made him smile. “People have said.” He held out his own glass for her to top up as she poured. “Describe it to me.”

The trickle of the whisky slowed as Jess frowned at him. “What?”

“Describe it to me.”

“Surely someone’s described your apartment to you.”

“Sure, but . . . I want to hear your description.”

She bit off a curse and chuckled, “Damn, is _that_ your best pick up line?”

Matt grimaced, “It’s like my third best. I wouldn’t waste my best on you.”

Jess laughed loudly, and slapped at the blanket between them. “Fuck you!” She grinned, and turned her head to the window. “Okay . . . it’s . . . damn this is hard. Um. There are colours.” She was laughing at herself now, and took another drink to ease the words from her lips. “Right now it’s purple. Then it’s red. Next it will be yellow. The, uh, the rain? It’s all over the windows. It makes the light . . . dance. I think there’s a name for that. Refraction, or . . . I don’t know. Everything else is dark. There are no lights on in here. Everything looks grey.”

“And what about you?”

“Huh?”

“No one’s ever described what you look like.” He spoke slowly, probing the wound with an abundance of caution. Jess cleared her throat, and winced. “Come on. Tell a blind guy.”

“I’m pale. I’m fucking vampire pale. People have said undead.”

He smiled. “They’ve said other things too.”

“Nothing I want to repeat.”

“What about your hair?”

“Black. Very black. More vampire references. Um . . . I have a weird nose. It turns up at the end. I like my eyebrows. I’ve never needed to pluck them much, they’re just pretty good. Thin, not too bushy. Um. My eyes are dark, my mouth’s too big. You probably knew that. Um  . . .”

“And what do you like most? How would I know if you were flirting with me?”

Jess’s pulse was echoing through her whole body, and she was watching him again, a smirk pulling her lips to the side, changing the sound of her breath. “I would . . .  open my mouth, just a little. I look up through my eyelashes. I turn my head a little, let my hair fall over my shoulder. I . . .”

“What?”

Jess rose to her feet, letting the blanket fall to the floorboards, and she reached a hand down for him. He took it, his fingers closing around her palm. Her grip was sure as she tugged him to his feet, and then began a slow walk to the bedroom, trailing him behind her. “Then I’d . . . just ask for what I want.” She was brimming with adrenaline. The air tasted of copper around her.

“And what do you want?” He trailed the fingers of his free hand over her spine, pushing the flannel higher up her skin. He could feel the barest shivers passing over her ribs, and he leaned in closer.

The bedroom door rattled on its runners as Jess pushed it open, a little too hard. When Matt took advantage of her momentary distraction to slide both hands beneath her shirt, resting them on her waist, she leaned back against his chest, inhaling deeply. “Mostly I want unhealthy life choices. Like doing you.”

He couldn’t help himself from chuckling into her hair, and he slid his right hand down to her waistband, over the slight rise of her belly. “You think you make unhealthy choices?” he drawled. “ _Please_. I’m officially broken.” He had to say he liked the way she arched up against his fingers, and the hand that she brought up to clasp around the back of his neck, pinning him effortlessly in place. “I’m, I think you said the only thing I knew how to feel was pain?”

“Oh, I think I said ‘ _hurt’_ , mmm.” Jess was so beautifully distracted from her bantering that he pressed a kiss against her ear, and felt immediately how she stiffened. He leaned back, giving her an inch of space, all he could manage with her hand still clamped against his neck. “Do that again,” she said, the tiniest waver in her voice, an uncertainty that perhaps most people wouldn’t have heard.

Matt leaned in again, this time to her right, and he didn’t kiss her ear but the curve of her neck. He curved his fingers towards him, and was rewarded by her fingers tightening against his neck. He was going to have bruises tomorrow, little points of pressure that people would look at, would wonder about.

“Just so we’re clear, this means nothing,” Jess said, releasing him and leaving his skin cold where her fingers no longer were. She twisted in front of him. This close, her body felt like a dervish, a chaos of heartbeats, heat, and smells. Her hand returned to his skin, this time his cheek, her thumb tracing over the stubble of his jaw. She kissed him, peat and vanilla, her lips hot, soft . . .

She pulled away, “It’s just a bad idea, yeah?” she insisted. She was so close to him that her words tickled his nose.

“Nothing,” he agreed, gripping her knee and pulling it over his hip, forcing her to balance on the toes of one foot. “It’s just saying sorry, right?”

“Ohhh.” She arched her back as he spoke into her chest. “Who’s saying sorry?”

“I am.” He backed her towards the bed, and let her check their fall. She could hold him above her effortlessly, and as she sprawled over the mattress he bent his head to kiss the smooth skin above her heart. He kissed again, and lower, sucking on her breast through the fabric of her shirt, until she grunted with impatience and tugged her top off. With her arms pinned above her head, he took advantage of the time to taste the hollow beneath her sternum, her belly, the rise of her hips . . .

“Matt?” Freed, she sounded strained, nearly frightened, and he clenched a fist in the sheets beside her waist.

“What?” he whispered into her belly.

“You can go harder,” she murmured, almost too quietly for a normal person to hear, the tension in her words telling him there was a little shame there, a little guilt. He pulled himself further up her body, holding himself above her, listening to the uneven hiss of her breath, and the racing of her heart. She swallowed, the rough sounds of her throat rasping grating on his ear. Her request had come at some cost. But that was a favour he could grant.

“Okay,” he murmured, and in one movement he grabbed the button of her denims and pulled them apart, tugging down, hard.

Jess’s pulse soared.

 

“I don’t get to eat Chinese much anymore,” Trish announced, digging inside the box for another battered salt and pepper rib. “Jess isn’t a fan, and I don’t really see the point ordering take out alone.”

Foggy snorted, contemplating the dumplings and the foo-yung. He elected to stab his chopsticks into another soft dumpling and tipped his head back to better facilitate stuffing his mouth. “If oo eva,” he managed, before swallowing, “need an excuse for take-out? You know my number.”

They sat around Trish’s coffee table, an arrangement of empty beer bottles scattered like a forest across the half-filled boxes. Foggy was sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa, Trish sitting cross-legged by the short edge of the table. “Did I ever tell you,” Trish began, dropping a bone to her plate. “How god-damned relieved I was to see Jess walk through that door that night? At the police station?” Her gaze flicked to meet Foggy’s, and then hastily returned to her plate. “I just knew somehow. One of our little groups was going to end up crying. And I . . .” she swallowed.

“I know what you mean,” Foggy murmured. “I knew it had to be Matt.”

“And I knew it had to be Jess.” Trish tried to smile, but her face seemed to be caught in a mask of the fear Foggy had felt that night. “I was so ready to be the one whose friend didn’t come back. And then she walked in the door . . . and I was so glad. I didn’t know who Matt was, but I wanted to thank him. My Jess walked through that door. It was all I cared about.”

There was little Foggy could say in return to that.

“And then? Jess . . . spiralled. The last few years haven’t been easy on her. But that building, it was like a floodgate opened, and she was angry, all over again.”

“It must have been hard to watch.”

“She really liked Matt, even when they’d just met. When Jess likes someone . . . well they become one of hers. She protects them. Even if they don’t want to be protected.”

“Ha.” Foggy held the dumpling box towards her, until she selected the one she wanted. “So . . . when he came back? One of the first things he said to me was _“The others. What about the others? What about Jess?”_ Didn’t even ask me how I was. If I was okay.”

Trish balanced her chopsticks over the foo-yung box, and wiped her fingers on a serviette. “Jess’s codeword is ‘I love you’ because that’s the thing she’ll never say.”

Foggy nodded slowly. “I think we’re in trouble,” he said.

“Good thing we both like Chinese food.”

 

Matt slept on his back, one arm twisted up beneath his pillow, the other curved over his chest. She had pushed him off her as they’d finished, memories of another man’s arm over her while she slept clinging to her mind, and he had quickly acquiesced. It felt, as it so often did, like he was reading her mind. She lay beside him, studying the rise and fall of his chest in the neon lights of his bedroom. His body was covered in knotted scars and healed gouges, a map of lost battles.

She had a bruise forming on her left thigh, where his teeth had dug in just a little too insistently. She was sure there’d be some on her breasts too. They’d fade by tomorrow night, but she knew if she could find a mirror they’d stand out stark against her skin in the blue neon light of the signs outside.

Everything inside her was unspooled. The tension had been worked away with the guttural cries he had wrenched from her. If his tongue was worth writing home about, she liked what he did with the rest of him even better. Maybe it was the masochistic side of him that liked to plunge the most precious parts of him into someone strong enough to bend iron bars. He had certainly screamed as she’d come, something that sounded deliciously like a prayer to god.

She should get up and leave, but her shoulders, poking out from the blankets, were cold in the cool air of the loft. So she buried herself further beneath the covers, and closer to Matt. He brought his arm down to curve around her back. He was like a furnace, like his rage kept him warm. The thought made her grin, and bury her face against his chest. As bad ideas went, this one felt cosy, safe and ached deliciously.

_“I’ll forgive you every day-“_

She screwed her eyes shut at the memory, clenching her fist above Matt’s heart. No, she thought fiercely. You don’t get this too.

_I get everything. Jessica Jones._

Matt’s arm tightened around her, and he turned his head to press a kiss against the top of hers. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she murmured.

They stayed wrapped up in the dark, and Jess flattened her palm against his chest. Birch Street. Higgins Drive. Cobalt Lane.

Matt’s hand played against the small of her back, until he drew breath as though he wanted to ask something. He stopped himself, until she nestled in closer, and said, “What?”

“You’re thinking of him, aren’t you?” The neon cycled through its colours, casting Matt’s face in purple, red, and yellow. “Your breathing changes when you do,” he murmured. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You can’t stop yourself, can you?” she asked, without ire. “And I can’t stop myself either.”

Matt said nothing, though his fingers flexed against her skin.  After a moment, he said, “There’s nothing I can do, is there?” he asked, and he turned so they were face to face, and he could gather her up. He was so close to her, unseeing eyes staring into face, that she thought she could feel his heart hammering against her ribs. Maybe this was a glimmer of his world, with touch and sound and taste replacing sight.

“It’s ‘cos you have a hero complex,” she told him softly, and he chuckled, the deep hum of his amusement shaking them both beneath the covers.

“Is there a cure?” he asked, and one of his very clever hands was sliding further down her back, curving over her bottom.

She rolled to her back, letting her knee drop to the side as he pressed between her legs again. “You need to be exposed to more bad influences,” she murmured. And for a little while, at least, Matt was able to chase away the demons. She wished she could tell him how good he was at it.

When the rain ceased, she braved the cold and pulled her denims back on, fingering a new rend in her shirt where enthusiasm had been too much for vintage GAP to bear. Matt was sprawled in his bed still, his eyes closed, although she had no doubt he was watching her in his own way. “Maybe I’ll see you around,” she said, and then, marvelling at how much of human communication relied on sight, amended, “Or maybe not.”

He smirked and made a show of nestling in beneath his blankets where she knew it was still warm. “Sure,” he said, “I’ve made my apologies.”

“Right,” she said, looping her belt back into her jeans. “For what they’re worth anyway.” Buckling her belt, she frowned as she looked around the bare floorboards for the last missing piece.

“Your jacket’s through there,” Matt pointed.

“Ah.” She took a step closer and leaned down to kiss him, feeling the strength in the hand he gripped her shoulder with, and she could feel the warmth from their bed, just begging her to return. “Mm,” she pulled herself out of his reach, with only the most token of resistances from him. Before she lost her resolve, she headed for her jacket.

“Hey Jones,” Matt called after her, “You’re a terrible lay!”

She raised her fist, one finger extended. “You’ll apologise for that,” she retorted, her grin utterly ruining any pretence of offense.

She thought she heard him say “I’m counting on it,” but it could just as likely have been her own thoughts. The city was icy cold and glittering from the rainfall. Jess stood on the roof of the warehouse, her hands tucked into her pockets, her chin beneath her scarf, and watched the colours on the sign cycle through. “I’m counting on it too,” she murmured, and wondered if Matt smiled in his bed, before she took a leap out into the sky, and flew into New York’s night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This originally ended with Foggy and Trish talking about their friends and sort of foreshadowing how they might work together, but it felt altogether too hopeful for Marvel's Netflix verse so it ended up getting cut. I also swithered a lot over Jess leaving the apartment - I worried a lot that people would interpret her 'jump' as a suicide, but any kind of description of her feelings felt clunky. So I hope it worked in the way it was left. I just completely adore these two. I deeply want some acknowledgement of Matt's 'death' in S2 of Jessica Jones, but I doubt we'll ever get it.


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